


Inevitable Fate

by HOOTwheelz



Category: Original Work
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-16
Updated: 2020-12-16
Packaged: 2021-03-10 17:01:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,897
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28110573
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HOOTwheelz/pseuds/HOOTwheelz
Summary: It's been about a week since I gave Sable her vacation. I don't have any other employees at my Cafe, so I'm stuck working the entire day. It's just a weird owl girl and a dyke offering coffee and card readings to our clients. I feel that tarot cards and coffee have a certain way of letting people open up. I emphasize to every client that tarot readings are just card games, like telling a story with a regular 52-card Bicycle deck of cards. Sometimes the story is relatable. Sometimes it isn't.





	Inevitable Fate

"Hoot, you there? You spaced out for a second."

I shake myself awake. I'd been thinking about her again.

"Sorry, I've been working long hours lately. Let's get back to your reading," I said groggily.

It's been about a week since I gave Sable her vacation. I don't have any other employees at my Cafe. It was just her and I, offering coffee and tarot card readings to our clients. I opened this tiny cafe as a way to help people connect with each other in a friendly environment; many cafes feel impersonal, barren of any socialization. I feel that tarot cards and coffee have a certain way of letting people drop their barriers and open up to their surroundings. I emphasize to every client that tarot card readings are just card games meant to tell stories; sometimes the story will be relatable, other times it won't. I tried finding other cartomancers to employ here, but only Sable answered the call. Every other card reader felt insulted that I sold readings as just funny stories rather than truly visionary, future-telling witchcraft. Sable feels the way I do about cards, though a bit differently; she sees the cards as a meditation method, allowing an individual to think introspectively in ways they couldn't before.

I like that about her. She's incredibly insightful as a card reader, in the way that a psychologist is insightful. Sable has a lot of knowledge about how people think. If there was ever an aptitude test on understanding people, Sable would ace it.

"Alright, so what do you think," I said to my client.

"Well, the reading was definitely interesting. I don't think it really fits well with the situation I'm in, but it was still pretty neat. The coffee's good too, to be honest."

I smiled. At least the coffee's still good.

....

I turned the key and locked the door behind me after I closed the store. We're getting fewer sales this week; people want Sable, but she's not around. I've seen a lot of our clientele in other coffee shops, sitting in their lonesome as they drink. It seems a lot of our customers are absolutely charmed by her.

"Hoot, I know you just closed up, but I need a favor." Her soft voice was unmistakeable. I turned the key back and opened the door.

"It's nice to see you, Sable," I say softly as I held the door open for her. She shuffles slowly through the doorway, and I close the door behind me. The soft lighting from the security lights and neon signs on the counter offered a gentle glow against her face as I sit down at the nearest table. She sits across from me. Her eyes are red, cheeks flushed. She's taken this situation harder than I could've ever imagined. I stand up and hold a finger to her, silently asking for her patience, and walk over to the coffee counter. I throw some light roasted beans in the grinder until they become a coarse sandy pile, then throw it into the french press. I'm the first to break the silence.

"I don't mean any offense, but you don't seem well. Your nose is running and your eyes seem bloodshot. If you need anything, you know you can just ask." She says nothing as I pour water into the press and set a timer for four and a half minutes. I usually tease Sable about her choice to use a french press to burn her coffee, but today isn't the best day for that.

A pair of arms wrap themselves around my waist weakly, and a face buries itself into my soft back feathers. I look down at the arms and see a tattoo of the three of pentacles in black ink.

"If you don't want to talk about it, Sable, that's fine. I'm your boss, first and foremost, but you know you're my friend too, right? You're not just getting those nightly bonuses for being a good employee." She tightens her grip on my waist, burying herself in my back. It would almost be soothing if it wasn't for the wet sensation my feathers were giving me. I guess my back sweats more than I thought.

"It's Reda," she said with a crack in her voice, gentle gasps for air littering the short pause after she spoke.

"I know, Sable. She'll be fine. She'll get through it." She clutches me tighter, restricting my breathing. The silence is pierced with her sobs.

.....

Sable is already a pretty happy gal, but I've never seen her happier than when she's around Reda.

Reda was a regular at the Cartomancy Cafe before I hired Sable. Reda was always a big fan of our coffee, though she was more fearful than skeptical when it came to cards. Reda told me one of her friends went to a card reader for an important financial decision, and ended up in mountains of debt as a result. It's exactly that kind of situation that inspired me to open the Cartomancy Cafe in the first place, and I felt at the time that Reda understood that. Even then, she still never asked for a reading.

That changed when Sable started working here. The two made an instant connection. I learned from Sable that Reda is actually from Mississippi, and she moved here some time last summer just before I opened my shop. It was a pretty big change for her. She went from the rural South to urban Canada for an employment opportunity that never materialized. She could've gone back, but something about the city made her stay. She found a job at a local bar, and sold nude pictures of herself on the internet to make up the money she needed to cover rent and food. She was proud of her work at both jobs, and I'll give the bar owner credit; it knows what Reda does, and it supports her completely. From what I gather in the monthly Commerce Committee meetings it's the only business owner who'd actually hold those kinds of perspectives, not counting myself.

Over time, Reda started coming to the shop a lot more often. Sometimes she'd come here twice a day, once for her morning coffee and again for her coffee before work. Every time she came in, she'd ask for service from Sable. At first I was a bit offended by it, but I quickly realized it really wasn't because of me. It had everything to do with Sable. The two were enamored with each other but, being the lesbians they are, neither one could admit their feelings for each other. They were constantly reading the room correctly, but just never had the courage to tell each other. Maybe it was the shame they felt being anything other than heterosexual, or maybe it was because they were both just timid dykes waiting until the right time. Even so, Reda kept coming back, asking Sable for card readings once in a blue moon.

Last month, Reda stopped me as I cleaned the counter before closing the Cafe. Sable had already gone home at that point, but she was there to talk to me. She asked for a card reading from me with an incredible amount of hesitation, but I obliged kindly. I shuffled the cards as I usually do, then told her to cut the deck twice. She grabbed the top half of the deck and put it to one side, then cut it in half again and put the half in her hand on the other side. I turned the three piles of cards over to reveal the Wheel of Fortune, the Hanged Man, and the inverted Eight of Cups. I gave it to her plainly as I saw it; she was going up against an inevitable fate from her past, and it would require some sort of sacrifice; she wanted to avoid this fate, but she knows it's inevitable. The sooner she faced it, the better.

Reda thought silently for a moment, then asked me what the cards individually meant. When I explained them to her, she paused for even longer. I asked if the reading was inaccurate, but she said it felt too true to be true. I was a little confused by that, but when I asked what she meant she refused to elaborate.

Reda thanked me and stood up, placing a ten dollar bill on the counter. I shook my head and said it was on the house, but she never picked it back up. She thanked me again, then left. I feared I might have influenced a decision, much like a card reader had done to her friend. I couldn't sleep that night. I'm not usually superstitious, but this was a bad omen if I ever saw one. We have a policy in the cafe to never talk about our client's readings with each other, but this felt different. I talked to Sable about it the next day, and she assured me it wouldn't be an issue. Still, I felt a lot of guilt and anxiety about it.

.....

The timer beeps. I think for a moment about whether or not I should take Sable's arms off of me to finish brewing her coffee, but she's so particular about her brews that I figure she would let me go if she wants me to. She doesn't let go.

I turn around in her arms, a difficult and uncomfortable but not impossible feat. I wrap my arms around her, but she only sobs louder. The volume of her crying is battling with the beeping timer. I reach over to stop the timer, but Sable releases her grip around my waist and grabs it first. She turns around towards the wall opposite to us and throws the timer overhand, letting a scream out as she does so. The timer shatters against the wall, plastic spraying across the nearby tables and the floor. The beeping stops and the cafe falls completely silent aside from her unsteady panting.

Sable plants her back against the counter and slides down to the floor, curling up into a tiny ball. I've never seen Sable be angry, let alone as angry as this. The timer means nothing to me. it isn't a family heirloom or meaningful trinket. It's just a timer I had for a long time, and I just used it at the Cafe because it fit the cafe's aesthetic better than any other timer I could've purchased. Even so, she knew it was my personal property and she'd just destroyed it in a fit of rage. I was speechless. 

After a brief moment of quiet, she returns to crying. I feel awful. She's obviously torn by Reda's illness getting worse. About a month ago, Reda called Sable and told her she was going to be in the hospital for a while. She had some genetic disorder she was typically able to hide, but the severity of its symptoms came and went. This time around seems worse than any other time in her life. Sable could barely keep it together when she told me about the phone call. I was as useless then as I am now. I need to do something.

I sit down next to her and place my hand on her shoulder. Her whole body shakes as she sobs. It's an intense sorrow I've only seen at funerals.

"Listen, Sable. I know this is hard for you, but trust in Reda that she'll fight through it. When she does, everything will be back to-"

"No, it won't," she whispers. She bats my hand off her shoulder and stands up. She grabs the french press and lifts it over her head. I rise to my feet and grab her arm before she can smash the glass coffeeware against the counter, but she wrenches her arm away from my hands and strikes the press against the hard wooden surface. Glass and warm coffee sprays out from the impact. I cover my face with my hands. I feel the heat of the coffee against my feathers and a couple glancing blows from the shards of glass. I look at my arm and see a cut on the back of my hand beginning to leak blood. I grab a bandage from under the counter and wrap it around my hand. I can feel my face contort as I try to hide my emotions, but my anger gets the best of me.

"Sable, what the fuck is wrong with you? Have you seriously lost hope already? Reda told you it'd be a while before she was fine. You don't think she meant she'd be there for just a couple days, did you?"

She turns to me, her face a highly conentrated mixture of rage and pure heartache. She pushes me with an incredible force. I trip and fall on my ass.

"She's not fine, Hoot," she says with a growl. "She's gone. She died two days ago."

"Nobody told me, Sable! How the fuck am I supposed to know when you're the only one she talks to?!"

"You knew, Hoot! You fucking knew! Your fucking card reading, Hoot. She had sickle cell. It was a genetic disorder. An inevitable fate. She didn't go to the hospital on her own power. She had a stroke. Then she had another one two days ago. Her body was too weak at that point to survive it."

"Card readings are bullshit, Sable! You know that! It's a fucking card game!"

"The day before she died, she told me she wanted to say something important to me. She was too tired to tell me then. The doctors told me the lack of oxygen in her blood caused damage to her lungs. She was struggling to breathe. Just talking to me put her out of breath. She wrote a note instead."

Sable drops an envelope into my lap. Inside the torn envelope is a note. I unfold it.

.....

Sable,

I'm sorry I can't say this with my own voice.

I love you. Not just as a friend. Please be with me.

\- Reda.

......

I look up from the note towards Sable. She's sitting across from me, staring at the floor. We sit there for a while. The tick of the clock on the wall and the hum of the neon lighting is the only noise for minutes. Sable breaks the silence.

"I wasn't there when she died. I read the note when I got home and I cried. I couldn't bear seeing her again. I was terrified, Hoot. Having someone admit their love for you when their dying is fucking terrifying. I thought maybe if I ignored it, then maybe it never happened. I wanted that kind of thing to be perfect. I wanted us to be in a field of sunflowers on a warm summer day, without a care in the fucking world. It wasn't right. It wasn't what either of us wanted. This letter she gave me only meant one thing. So I didn't go. If I ignore it, it won't happen."

I give her a few moments after she stops talking, then scooch my butt next to hers. We sit there next to each other wordlessly once more. After a while, she lays her head against my shoulder. Within a few minutes, she falls asleep.

I can't stop thinking about the reading. It's just a card game. Nothing was truly inevitable, right? These cards have no special connection with the universe. Surely, this had to be an outstanding coincidence. An inevitable fate could mean anything. When you cast wide nets, those nets tend to catch pretty specific things.

I carefully cradle Sable into my arms and slowly stand up. The cut on my hand throbs with pain for the first time since Sable broke the french press, but I don't falter. I carry her out of the store, locking the door behind me. I walk just a few feet down the sidewalk and unlock the door to my upstairs apartment, situated perfectly above my cafe. I walk through my home, lit only by the streetlights outside, reaching my bedroom down the hallway. I lay her down on my bed and pull the sheets over her, and tuck a small snowy owl plushie into her arm. As I walk backwards toward the door she stirs, turning away from me. I stop for a moment, as if making any movement would wake her, and wait a few seconds more before leaving the room. I shut the door as quietly as I can and tip-toe towards the kitchen. Radiohead plays softly on the radio next to the fridge as I boil water in the kettle for my tea.

"What kind of hipster plays Pyramid Song at two in the fucking morning," I thought to myself.

The kettle whistles as I finish my thought. I quickly turn the kettle off and pour the hot water into a mug. I grab a tea bag from the box on the counter and drop it in. With mug in hand I walk to my living room, avoiding all the creaky floorboards, and take a seat on the couch.

I turn my television on and watch shitty early morning public access television for the rest of the night. It's the only channel I can get here.

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to write a bit of a backstory to my OC, Hoot. A year or so ago I made a world in VRChat with a deck of tarot cards that could be shuffled with the press of a button. I called it the Cartomancy Cafe. I used to give tarot card readings to friends by shuffling the deck then giving them readings. I wanted Hoot to have a story related to the Cartomancy Cafe, so I made her the owner of the shop. I originally planned to make this story into a music video set to Pyramid Song by Radiohead, but it's a shitload of work I know I'll never be able to do. So now it's just text on a web page.


End file.
